Orthodontic treatment in dentistry is provided by adding a weak force to the teeth of a patient to facilitate change in tissues supporting the teeth and moving the teeth to respective desirable positions. There are many kinds of orthodontic devices used for moving the teeth. From among them, orthodontic devices called edgewise devices are broadly used, and such orthodontic devices are used by mounting a wire on brackets or buccal tubes.
In orthodontic treatment, an ideal occlusion as of the end of the orthodontic treatment is contemplated in consideration of, e.g., the biological background of, and the shapes of the teeth of, each patient, and then desired three-dimensional mounting positions for orthodontic devices are determined. Thus, in order to achieve an ideal alignment of the teeth, dentists provide treatment using a direct-bonding method to directly mount orthodontic devices to the teeth of a patient in their offices at the time of the start of orthodontic treatment or an indirect bonding method to determine positions for mounting orthodontic devices in advance using a setup model (stone model) created by making an impression of the alignment of the teeth of a patient with silicone and realigning the respective teeth based on the impression, and mount the orthodontic devices to the teeth of the patient.
In the direct bonding method, skills are required to mount orthodontic devices to respective correct positions in a plurality of teeth, and thus, the result of treatment depends on the level of the skills of the dentist, who is an operator. More specifically, for example, in order to mount orthodontic devices to 28 upper and lower teeth, while a dentist skilled in this treatment can mount an orthodontic device to each teeth in around two minutes, that is, the orthodontic devices to all the 28 teeth in about one hour, a dentist not skilled in this treatment has difficulty mounting the orthodontic devices to the correct positions, and even if he/she can mount the orthodontic devices to the correct positions, he/she takes more time, and thus, may require two or three hours, resulting in a large burden imposed on the patient resulting from being held for such long period of time. Also, for example, even a dentist skilled in this treatment sometimes fails to mount orthodontic devices to correct positions if he/she tries to mount the orthodontic devices more quickly, or depending on his/her mood or physical condition on the day, and thus, after all, the result of treatment is influenced by the dentist who is the practitioner.
On the other hand, in the indirect method, a setup model is created based on an impression made based on the alignment of the teeth of a patient, and thus, although it is said that much time can be taken to easily mount orthodontic devices to correct positions, an error may occur in dimensional accuracy depending on the level of the skills of the dental technician who is the creator of the setup model, which may cause problems such as floating-up of the orthodontic devices. Also, although the burden on a patient resulting from the patient being long held is reduced because orthodontic devices are created based on a setup model, the dentist or the dental technician takes much time to create orthodontic devices so as to mount the orthodontic devices to correct positions, and consequently, such method is hardly regarded as a simple method for dentists.
Therefore, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-43731 discloses an invention relating to a corrective appliance positioning jig including three or four corrective bracket support sections configured to hold respective corrective brackets specially designed to be attached to respective teeth in order for an orthodontist to dispose orthodontic devices to be attached to the teeth of a patient.